Curtis Harding believes that racist people have more courage now that President Trump is in officeTHOMAS LAISNE

The stylish dude sitting opposite me in a restaurant booth off Union Square in Manhattan looks as if he has stepped out of a Seventies film by Martin Scorsese: black patent leather loafers, red flares, paisley shirt, short Afro. Curtis Harding is a fast-rising soul singer who has taken a day off from filming the comedy crime drama Hap and Leonard to be here. He’s also a muse of the former Yves Saint Laurent creative director and photographer Hedi Slimane. But he still looks, walks and talks as if he should be in Mean Streets. As it turns out, mean streets are something he has experience of.

“When I was a kid we travelled around the country, singing to homeless people at random,” says Harding,…

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